Teachers

Ilia Volokh, Founder and Lead instructor

Ilia brings with him over 30 years of dancing, teaching and performing in the United States and Russia. Ilia’s career began with the formal ballet training and a Master of Dance Education degree from the Moscow’s Institute of Theater Arts.  Ilia is THE MAN of the studio. He teaches all ballroom and Latin dance styles.

Renata Nitscheova-Knaus, dance instructor

Renata brings more than 20 years of teaching experience, and 10+ years of competition experience.  Her professional knowledge includes all styles of dance.

Renata started ballroom dancing at age 12 in the Czech Republic, and started competing at the amateur level at age 15 in Latin and Standard dance styles. During college in Prague, Renata joined a top dance studio, Staccato, focusing on Latin with various coaches and competing with her partner.

After moving to Cleveland in 1999, she concentrated on teaching dance and learning rhythm and smooth styles. She began competing in the American smooth professional division and in pro/am events in both rhythm and smooth.

Thomas Kindt, dance instructor

Thomas had an unusual start to his ballroom career.  In the summer of 2006 he was looking for a change in his life after returning home early from college.  He had been an athlete for most of his life and majored in vocal performance.  Having always wanted to learn how to dance, and performing in some fashion since he was in the first grade, he saw an ad in the paper that said ‘train to teach’.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, he has loved his career as a teacher and as a dancer.  With students, Thomas has competed all over the country and twice outside of it, and has competed professionally in the American Smooth style.  To Thomas, there is nothing better than dancing: it is a true expression of yourself.  He loves both competing and performing.

With his terrible jokes and his joy for learning, there are two things you’ll hear him say: with enough time, anyone can get good at dance, you just can’t give up!  And the best thing about dance is also the worst thing about dance: there is always something else to learn.

Yulia Frid, dance instructor

Yuliya teaches group and private ballroom dance classes. She loves working with both kids and adults, and enjoys competing and performing with her students. Yuliya has been dancing since she was a small child in Russia. In 2007, she began teaching and performing professionally, specializing in Salsa, American Rhythm and Smooth.